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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26615671">tyson v douglas</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesunsethour/pseuds/thesunsethour'>thesunsethour</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>hell yes, found family [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Criminal Minds (US TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Buford is only mentioned, Gen, Past Rape/Non-con, Recovery</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 09:41:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,290</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26615671</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesunsethour/pseuds/thesunsethour</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Coach Buford always says that one day, Derek will look back on this period of his life and smile.  That someday he will be a lawyer or a cop or anything he wants to be, and he’ll know that it all began with football in high school.  He promises Derek, with a too-heavy hand on a bare shoulder, that he’ll be a proper man one day, with his help.</p><p>Derek goes home and scrubs his body in the shower until his skin in patchy and raw.  The heat from the water burns him, and he relishes the sensation, because it’s a different pain to the one he carries inside himself constantly.</p><p>*</p><p>cm songfic, part 1</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Derek Morgan &amp; Fran Morgan, Derek Morgan &amp; Spencer Reid</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>hell yes, found family [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1932388</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>71</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>tyson v douglas</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>hello!  i'm doing a series of (non-connected) cm oneshots based on songs from 'the killers' because i was listening to their entire discography one night and realised how many of them can be related to a cm character.</p><p>here's a little snippet of Morgan's teenage years, please don't read if you feel you may get triggered from some of the content (i tagged past rape/non-con in the tags)</p><p>stay safe and healthy, and have a wonderful day :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <i>"Looking out the window, out on the street.  I don’t know what happened, I’m out on my feet.  I hear my mother calling my name.  I still come running, but I ain’t the same."</i>
</p><p>Derek Morgan hated the winters in Chicago; the air was too cold, leaving constant goose bumps on his skin through his thin sports jerseys.  The wind weaves its way between buildings and around cars and street signs, cutting through everything in its path like a merciless knife.  When November hits, the snow arrives with a vengeance, and then football practice is cancelled, and Derek can’t for the life of him figure out if he’s pleased at this or not.</p><p>On one hand, no football means more time at home, where his sisters cry and mourn and fill their small kitchen with such darkness that it sometimes feels like <i>he</i> was the one who died instead of their father.  Their mother makes them all their favourite meals as if that would distract them from the empty seat at the table.  No football means coming home to a home he doesn’t recognise anymore.</p><p>No football also means no Coach Buford.</p><p>Derek kicked viciously at a light post he was walking past at the mere thought of <i>him.</i>  He tries not to be so angry all the time, but he was still so young, and the world was so cruel to young boys in the deathly cold.  The trek back to his house from school seemed to stretch out for an eternity, and he was almost glad.  Maybe he could stay out here, on the Chicago streets, and avoid having to go either forwards or backwards.  He could leave both hells behind him, and exist only in this moment, where his anger lights a pit in his stomach to keep him warm.</p><p>But his house is just around the corner, and he can already see his mother in the kitchen through the window.  She’s staring at him, and he’s too far away to see what emotion lies in her gaze.  Her eyes drill into him, though, and he knows that she witnessed him kick the lamppost and ball his hands into fists in pure frustration.  She calls his name then, he can’t hear her, the distance between them still too great, but he knows to come running to the door for dinner.</p><p>Dinner today will be a deep dish barbeque chicken pizza.  They only have it on the anniversary of his father’s death, because it had been his favourite, and they can’t stomach it any other day.  Sometimes Derek catches a whiff of the familiar scent when he walks past a restaurant, and he has to make a concerted effort not to throw up in the nearest gutter.<br/>
His mother calls his name, and he runs to his front door, which was once pristine white, but has now stained yellow slightly.  His mother picks up extra shifts and his Auntie Yvonne helps out, but they’re not half as comfortable as they used to be, five years ago, before their world was tossed upside down.  The door squeaks on its hinges, and the linoleum floor of their hallway looks tarnished from his grassy shoes trudging over it, and the soft drinks that Sarah spills, and the tears that they have all shed.</p><p>Hank Morgan died, and everything is just slightly worse than it used to be.  Including himself.</p><p>He’s greeted with a hug from his mother, who squeezes his growing body and kisses his cheek.  </p><p>“How many times have I told you not to run when you come into the house?  You’ll trip over something one day.”  She rubbed her hands over his upper arms.  “You never change, Derek.”</p><p>She smiles when she talks, and for a brief moment, Derek can try and believe that he hasn’t changed; that he’s still the hyperactive 10 year old who collects football trading cards and tries to do handstands in the backyard with his sisters.</p><p>He knows better, but he can’t tell his mother.  He loves her too much to break her heart like that.</p><p>“Sorry, Momma.”  He says instead, a cheeky grin on his face.  “I’ll remember next time.”</p><p>She laughs like there’s nothing wrong, and he lets her, because for her, nothing is.  It’s another anniversary, but she has her three children, and their pizza is in the oven.</p><p>He smiles, and hugs her back again, ignoring how much it hurts his body, his mind, and whatever is left of his soul.</p><p>
  <i>"When I saw him go down, felt like somebody lied.  I had to close my eyes just to stop the tears."</i>
</p><p>Dinner that night is a solemn affair, despite his mother’s best efforts.  Desiree keeps smothering sniffles into a tissue, which irritates Sarah, who kicks her sister under the table.  Their mother gets upset at that, which upsets Sarah in turn, and the rest of the meal is eaten in deathly silence.</p><p>Derek finishes first, and after washing up his plate he scurries off upstairs, claiming maths problems that need to be solved and book reports that need to be written.  He’s lying, of course, as he does quite often nowadays.  His school performance never falters, he’s making sure of that, to appease his mother and aunt, but the work is mostly done on the empty adjacent school bus seat in the mornings before class begins.  His evenings are usually spent playing football with the school, or in the park.  </p><p>Football distracts him, allows him to clear his mind of the wretched anger that seeks to overtake him at every possible moment.  His mother can’t stop singing Coach Buford’s praises in helping him overcome his rage.  Derek knows he was close to slipping, so damn close to becoming just another victim of the violent Chicago streets.  A fatherless boy, the ultimate stereotype, who goads kids double his size and tripe his ability into fights just to <i>feel</i> something.  </p><p>But tonight there can be no football.  From his bedroom window he watches the snowflakes flurry down, landing in the potholes that line his street, and sticking there.  When he wakes up tomorrow, there will be several inches of pure white snow covering the road and his garden and his mother’s slowly dilapidating car.  Derek imagines running into the snow, into the light that reflects off of it.  </p><p>He wonders if he travels far enough into that light, whether he will see his father again.</p><p>His Pops would be waiting for him, an easy smile on his face and an arm already lifted up so that Derek could run into a hug.  They’d talk for hours on end about music and sports and school.  They would be happy, and Derek would never have to drag himself up out of bed again only to desperately wish that his eyes hadn’t reopened.</p><p>He remembers it so vividly, the moment his father fell down, never to stand up again.  He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget it.  It was strange, though.  When it happened, none of it felt real.  Derek was sure that he would blink, and his father would be sitting in the car beside him once again, clapping him on the shoulder before driving them both home.  He remembers thinking that his eyes were lying to him, and that there was no way its was <i>his</i> father’s red, red blood spilling out over the street. </p><p>But it was real.  Devastatingly, horrifically real.</p><p>He also remembers shutting his eyes tight, lest his tears mingle with the blood.  He wasn’t sure he would be able to handle that.</p><p>He’s not sure he’s able to handle much of anything these days.</p><p>
  <i>“You can hit the showers, fill the place up with steam.  Close the curtains, but when you woke up man, it wasn’t no dream.”</i>
</p><p>Coach Buford always says that one day, Derek will look back on this period of his life and smile.  That someday he will be a lawyer or a cop or anything he wants to be, and he’ll know that it all began with football in high school.  He promises Derek, with a too-heavy hand on a bare shoulder, that he’ll be a proper man one day, with his help.<br/>
Derek goes home and scrubs his body in the shower until his skin in patchy and raw.  The heat from the water burns him, and he relishes the sensation, because it’s a different pain to the one he carries inside himself constantly.</p><p>Nightfall arrives and the dark does nothing to hide the horrid parts of his life.  The moon shines down on him and reveals the almost-burned skin from too-hot showers, and the constant tension in his shoulders from trying not to scream out as Coach Burford touches him.  Touches him in places that the school guest speaker on personal safety says no stranger should ever touch.</p><p>One autumn evening, a hundred years ago, early on in the downfall of his life, he remembers telling Coach Buford that.</p><p>“I’m not a stranger, though, am I, kid?”</p><p>He couldn’t argue with that.  Carl Buford was not a stranger to his mind or his body, as much as he wishes that were so.</p><p>At night, he doesn’t dream of anything anymore, just violent flashes of his father’s blood, his mother’s sobs, and Buford’s hands.  Every morning he wakes up, and for a few, blissful moments, he forgets.   But then, of course, he remembers, and soon it’s time for school.  And after school comes football practice unless they’re snowed out again.</p><p>A never-ending cycle.  </p><p>
  <i>”Feeling the slip again, don’t wanna fall.  You said it was nothing, but maybe you’re wrong.”<i></i></i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>18 years later, and Derek Morgan is sitting on the steps that lead to his childhood backyard.  Reid and Prentiss are in the kitchen, explaining to his mother and his sisters about Buford.  They won’t tell them everything; the personal details are for him to tell on his own time, but they handle the debrief, so that Derek can have a few precious minutes alone before he has to confess the suffering of his teenage years to a mother in pain.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>He remembers sitting on these steps as a kid, 13, 14, 15 years old.  He remembers smoking cigarettes with his ‘friends’ because he thought it looked cool, just like the guys from the movies.  Not that he would admit it, but he wouldn’t mind a cigarette or ten right now, anything to distract him from the occurrences of the past few days.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>From inside he can hear a sharp inhale from one of his sisters, and he knows the inevitable is coming.  When the backdoor creaks open, his spine straightens, and he prepares for the worst.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Hey.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Okay, so maybe not the worst just yet.  While he had been expecting Desiree or Sarah in floods of tears, or his mother in heartbroken shock, it was actually the soft tones of Doctor Spencer Reid that broke through the silence.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Hey, kid.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Reid sat down beside him, knees tucked toward his slight body for some extra warmth in the bitter Chicago air.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Prentiss is just finishing up.  I- I don’t know how much she’s going to tell them, but I just- I didn’t want you to be alone out here while she goes through the case.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Derek wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to talk right now, so he reached over to squeeze Reid’s knee in thanks, knowing the kid would understand.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Reid’s breath could be seen in the air, and the slowly setting sun could be seen over the garden fence, turning the horizon indigo, which matched one of the younger agent’s socks, and Derek huffed out a laugh.  Reid looked at him with furrowed brows but received no elaboration.  Instead, he broached a different subject.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“You know, Buford once told me that it was nothing.  The mentoring, the sealing of my juvenile record, the – the scholarships he helped me get.  He just shrugged his shoulders and told me it was nothing at all, that he enjoyed helping me.  No skin off his back, no need to thank him.  Told me that the pleasure was all his, and that I was special, worth more than a too early grave in some overcrowded Illinois cemetery.  I – it was all so goddamn confusing.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Reid didn’t say anything right away, but simply repeated Derek’s earlier gesture, squeezing the other man’s knee and offering a small, sad smile.  There was silence for a while, before the sound of a loud sob from inside reverberated through the air.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Guess I should get back in.”  Derek said grimly, standing up against protesting bones, too heavy and pained for his years.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Morgan – he was wrong.  It wasn’t nothing.  It was calculated abuse.  And I know you know that, and God, please shut me up if I’m annoying you, but – Your worth isn’t dependant on the results of his actions, the scholarship and the records and such.  You – Your worth has been inside you since the day you were born.  And – and for what it’s worth, I’m very, very thankful that I can call you my friend, and witness that worthiness every day.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>With that Reid was gone, and from the sound of the front door clicking shut, so was Prentiss.  </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>He was alone again, as he so often was in his childhood.  But it was different.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Reid’s words warmed him where he once required anger to do so, and Prentiss’ generosity in volunteering to begin briefing his family gave him the strength to finish the story.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Tonight he would sit down at the kitchen table, always still missing one seat, and he would tell his mother and his sisters the story of Derek Morgan.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>And he would let their love warm him.</i>
  </i>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>feel free to leave a comment i thrive on validation</p></blockquote></div></div>
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